3 Mexican Mafia members convicted

Published 12:00 am, Friday, May 21, 2010

The federal racketeering case against the Texas Mexican Mafia that began six years ago ended Thursday with the three remaining defendants being convicted.

Gang general Jacinto “Cache” Navajar, 54, and lieutenants Mike “Mikio” Garcia, 43, and Jose “Bam Bam” Martinez, 44, each was found guilty of a single count of conspiracy to engage in a criminal racketeering enterprise.

The racketeering included more than 20 murders, two attempted murders, robbery, extortion and trafficking heroin and cocaine.

Each of the three faces up to life in prison without parole when sentenced Aug. 26 by U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia. Jurors, who were identified in court only by number, were escorted out of the federal courthouse under guard after the verdicts were announced.

The verdicts were a fitting end for the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, San Antonio police and most other agencies in the region that participated in the crackdown in 2008, when 34 members were arrested.

The investigation that began in 2004 solved 24 killings, and by the time of trial, most of the defendants had pleaded guilty.

Some testified about the operations of the gang, also known as Mexikanemi, and their own participation in the home invasions, extortions, murders and the collection of a 10 percent “street tax” levied on drug dealers — all meant to further the interests of the gang.

“We took a filing cabinet of unsolved murders and cleared them,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joey Contreras said. “We are very happy.”

Contreras and Assistant Bexar County District Attorney Mary Green described the gang, founded in prison in 1984, as having grown into a killing machine that controls San Antonio's heroin trade.

It advocates “blood in, blood out” — to join, a prospect must commit a violent act on behalf of the gang, and the only way out is by death, they said.

“I'm not shocked, but disappointed,” Price said. “I mean, the amount of violence involved and the negative shock, it's hard to overcome that.”

The gang's founder, Heriberto “Herb” Huerta, has described the Mexikanemi not as a criminal enterprise, but as something spiritual or cultural — a unity meant to liberate the minds of Mexican people and seek the return of the land stolen from them by the U.S. government.

Huerta is serving life in federal prison in Colorado for racketeering, and authorities believe he still issues orders to street soldiers through a network of gang members behind bars.